Testing KS1 SATS in Year 3?!

[melfisk]

Why is my independant school testing for the KS1 in Year 3 when the children are 7/8 instead of the usual 6/7 in Year 2?

My child completed the tests at her old school in the spring term in Year 2.

Why does the school do this? Does this not make the results incomparable with other children?

An independent doesn't have to either a) take the tests or b) publish them.

Are they doing them now? They may just be using them as a class measuring tool.

I assume they are just uisng them within school as some form of assessment - maybe as a baseline for start of juniors (albeit a term in)? I am sure they are not submitting them to be included in the league table stuff - at Y3 they won't count. Independent schools don't have to do SATs at all if they don't want to - so may well not be doing them for that reason anyway.

Why not go and ask them?

Are you sure they are not the optional Year 3 tests?

Thanks ever so much for your responses. We only joined the school in September and had no idea that they hadn't completed the SATS/Equivalent in Year 2. I was then informed that the children would be doing tests in November and received a set of marks showing my child's results as percentages. She was also given a mark of 3c for comprehension which lead me to believe that the tests may be based on SATS tests. Raised a query with the head teacher who indeed confirmed that the comprehension test was conducted at the SATS Level and that the other tests related to work completed this term. I have asked him to clarify this.

If they are all based on SATS KS1 I can't understand why the children weren't tested in Year 2 instead of now. Can anyone suggest why?

My child has achieved ridiculously high marks in the exams (90% and over in each subject) and am beginning to wonder if this is because she has done all the work before earlier this year.

what are optional year 3 tests? Sorry I'm a complete beginner!

Indies follow their own rules - its one of the benefits of being independent.

But it does mean they can also pick the picks of the national curriculum that work for them, so they wanted to test they yr3s and see where they were at, and for comprehension rather than write their own paper, or such like, the most appropriate one for them and what they wanted to see was to use a KS paper.

But by testing their Year 3's at aged 7/8 seems pointless when everyone else is testing them at 6/7.

If she was given a 3c then it sounds like they were using KS2 year 3 marking criteria for whatever tests they did. If they were using a KS1 paper then your child would only get a straight 3 as the level is not differentiated at KS1 within the level 3. I work in a junior school and when we test the children in any year it is against the KS2 marking citeria and thus the children will gain a national curriculum level (which your child has been given). Most state schools I know do this, and their tests are based on the SATS tests at the appropriate year group level - lots of schools do optional SATS for each year group to see how well the children are progressing against the criteria and see if they are on target for the Y6 SATS. So yes they will be based on SATS I would say but not the KS1 SATS but the optional Y3 SATS that are produced. Most state schools mark test work every half term/term against the appropriate level descriptors for all children, whatever year they are in, and just so you know 3c is what an average child should be getting at the end of Y3 so your DD is doing fairly well to be at that stage now. Hope this has been helpful and not too waffly!

There ar optional SATs tests for year 3, 4 and 5 - just used as internal assessment generally I thnk.

But hopefully alongside good teacher assessment, following the good practice of Y2 assessment. Any school who reports SAT test results alone, optional or not, is very out of date with current good practice. It also makes the Y2 results incomparable with the Y3 ones - in that case Y2 being based on sound teacher assessment explaining at where a child is at on a day to day level, and Y3 being a narrow one off test.

I would expect a school to use a range of assessments, not just SATs, or indeed any formal test.

As they others said, could it have been the optional Year Three tests?

Our Year Threes just did them as there is a new Head and there have been assessment issues in the past, so this is part of her getting a good baseline of where the school is at.

This is the first time I've been on mumsnet and I think its amazing you can get such good advice. Thank you, you've put my mind at rest!